Amy Winehouse's electrifying first TV performance remembered

12 July 2025, 12:56

Before the beehive and brimming with nerves, Amy’s raw TV debut in 2003 hinted at the music icon she’d become.

On a drizzly November evening in 2003, Amy Winehouse, an unknown singer from North London, took her place beneath the lights on the stage of the TV show Later… with Jools Holland.

Dressed in simple black, guitar in hand, the 20‑year‑old launched into 'Stronger Than Me,' the new single from her debut album, Frank.

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Amy Winehouse was still a new signing on the Island/Universal record label, and her new album, released a month earlier, was selling modestly.

The television spot — recorded live with her rhythm section — was her first chance to reach a nationwide audience outside late‑night radio.

Later… booker Mark Cooper later recalled Winehouse’s incredible audition tape "sounded like Dinah Washington over hip‑hop drums."

Jools Holland himself introduced her as “someone you’re going to be hearing a lot more from", and within minutes Amy's voice had silenced the studio audience.

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The moment went on to cement Amy Winehouse as a superstar, and helped result in Frank's one million album sales.

Part of the performance’s power is context. In 2003, mainstream British pop was ruled by polished R&B acts and X Factor winners.

But Amy's smoky voice and unfiltered lyrics about useless boyfriends immediately set her apart.

Her early producer, Salaam Remi, who also produced the Fugees, later said about Amy’s early style: "She had a very clear point of view even at 18… she was writing lyrics that were smarter than most people twice her age."

Speaking to The Guardian six months after her TV debut, she half‑joked that parts of Frank were "a piece of sh**" and that she hated fretting about image: "I’m ugly, I don’t give a s***."

The quip was typical Amy: deflecting praise and also revealing her own high standards.

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The interviewer went on to describe the album: "Her arresting debut, rightfully lauded by critics, is a beautiful, boldly-written collection of 13 spiky songs that acerbically dissect love in a 'four bottles of red wine, 30 Gitanes' style."

However, Amy’s relationship with that early period remained complicated.

"I love America, it's a much more permissive place. Here in England, everyone's a pop star, innit, whereas in America they believe in the term artist," she continued in the 2004 Guardian interview.

"[In the UK] it's 'how badly can we get you to f*** up in front of the camera?' They're just waiting for things to go wrong here."

Just two years after her TV debut, Amy Winehouse’s love life was at times as headline-making as her music.

Amy met Blake Fielder-Civil in 2005, and the pair married in 2007.

Their relationship was marked by intense highs and lows, with both parties reportedly battling substance abuse issues.

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The couple divorced in 2009, but Amy often referred to Blake as the love of her life, and their volatile romance heavily influenced the emotional rawness of her second and last album, Back to Black, in 2006.

Nick Shymansky had known Amy since she was 16 years old and worked as her manager between 1999 and 2006, helping to release Frank in 2003.

Amy Winehouse - Stronger - 2003 First tv Performance

In an interview after her death in 2011, he gave an insight into Amy's early mindset and how her life changed after meeting her husband.

"I’ve never experienced such a drastic change in a human being," he recalled.

"I’d been on holiday in 2005, and when I got back she told me she’d met this guy and fallen in love, and that he was 'a right wrong’un, but a good boy'.

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"I walked in and he was there, and that’s when I first met Blake [Fielder-Civil]. And I thought, something’s really wrong.

"It was horrible to see her going from someone so tender and brilliant and warm to being kind of derelict and lost."

Speaking about the side of Amy no one else saw, Nick went on to say how intelligent and perceptive Amy was.

"She was very bright – when we used to travel, she used to do Sudokus at the speed of light, crosswords. She used to read books that even now I can’t read – she needed stimulation."

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Going on to explain why he thought Amy was so different, Nick said: "In a landscape where artists can be quite safe and average at times, she was special.

"Many modern artists are very strategic and business-minded about their career, whereas Amy was totally music.

"She just really didn’t give a s***, and I think that really projected through her interviews, her music, her persona, and that’s what connected with people."

Amy said it herself; she wanted the music, not the fame.

In a clip filmed early in her career, and later shown in the 2015 documentary, Amy, the singer said: "I don’t think I’m going to be at all famous, I don’t think I could handle it. I would probably go mad,"